Hooping Quaffles
by Whisper Gypsy
Summary: Oliver Wood happens to run into the girl he never had a chance with in school. Will graduation and a dip in the real world have shifted his odds for the better? HG/OW


Chapter One: Taking the Shot

A/N: This plot bunny rose up and bit me, refusing to let go before I wrote it all down. Here you go!

Disclaimer: Oliver belongs to Hermione in this fic, but in reality, he was the first wizard ever to be married—successfully—to a sport. I crashed the wedding and threw a thousand rice-sized snitches at all the guests before kidnapping him and bringing him here for your pleasure. You had damn better appreciate all my hard work.

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Today was the hellish pinnacle of hellish days.

I had gotten bruised up and down all during practice, had broken up with the cheating bird I didn't really care for to begin with, but it's the principle of the thing, and then this happens. I stumble into a puddle of swill just outside the owlery. Goals and feints, this bites

I picked myself up off the rough cobblestones—it's one thing to be slammed into a Quidditch pitch, but another into a three-hundred year old street. A fact I could have done without knowing.

"Are you alright there?" A familiar voice like honey on ice sounded through my twice-blest ears, and I looked up from my muddy practice robes, still sweaty from practice and saw her. Hermione Granger, all grace in lace and satin, hair pulled back in something prim, but with some curls dropped out, hinting at what her hair would do once you began running your fingers through it. It became a little hard to breath just then. "Oliver!? Oliver Wood?"

My sun, my moon, my stars, "Hermione Granger?" My voice betrayed me with a slight croak but I manfully ignored it. And bless her, she didn't even flinch at it.

"Imagine running into you out here? Here, let me help you with this; Scourgify." And in moments, my entire person: body, hair, practice robes, and even my unders—which was enough to give the strongest man the shudders—, were all clean as though they'd been washed and dried by the most devout of house elves.

"Thanks, Hermione. How've you been? Working at the Ministry, I hear? Which Department was it?" My eyes traveled across the delightful womanly figure before me, marking the changes that time had granted her, and finding my gaze returning to her eyes, which shone with enthusiasm as she was explaining something about her job to me, something about dragons and hexes and life-threatening things. "Ah," I interjected when she had wound down. "So, another ordinary, humdrum dull day thing, eh?"

She laughed at that, and I felt like the wittiest wizard alive, Merlin included. "And how about you, Oliver? I hear all sorts of advertising about Wood bringing Puddlemere back into the foreground of the Quidditch World. Has all that fame gotten you any benefits yet?"

I smirked as best as I could and managed, "Well, I do get to use a World Cup standard size Pitch any time I want, and access to all sorts of equipment, and equipment testing, and I get to bloody play the best sport in the whole world." And then I adopted a Malfoy sneer and plucked a nonexistent bit of fluff from my robes and brushed it to the floor. "So, nothing really."

She laughed again and I found my Gryffindor courage. I reached out and grabbed her hand—so soft!—in my own and asked, "I know you've not seen me since our school days, but I've been hoping to run into you—well, not like this, but…" Whisp, hang it, I was mumbling! "What I meant is, would you go out with me?"

Hermione bit her lip, and I felt my heart beating as quickly as the wings of a snitch escaping the snapping fingers of a fleet Seeker, hope burrowing deep into my flesh, clawing its way into my soul, leaving a too sweet taste on the back of my tongue, choking my throat. "Why now, Oliver? We went to school together. You graduated ahead of me, but it's not as if you didn't return for every Gryffindor Quidditch match, rain, shine, or dragon pox be damned. We saw plenty of each other, and you never were more than a friend, never implied you wanted more. So why now?"

"I did want to be more then. So much more, Hermione. But how was I supposed to even approach you as more than the Quidditch nut?"

Her beautiful brow crinkled in further confusion, painting a picture of the girl who loved learning new things, and who wanted to understand everything. This was the Hermione who had drawn me in all those years ago, and who still held me in her beautiful thrall. "What do you mean?" she asked, sounding more than a touch miffed.

"Well, you're the untouchable Gryffindor Virgin Princess. You come with two bookend warriors—The boy-who-won't-fucking-die, fastest Seeker alive, and Chosen One extraordinaire and then there's Weasley, the Chess master-strategist, and über-Keeper, that never lets a Quaffle through a hoop, and you believe either of them would allow anyone the opportunity to make a pass at you? And then you've got potions' menace Longbottom, and no one in their right mind wants all that destructive energy focused on them. Then there was Ginny, and she was one right frightening witch, and that's all I'll say on that. And then of course, my mates, Fred and George, and Merlin only knows where my body would turn up if I so much as looked at, let alone touched, their little almost-sister or their little "Granger"." Her mouth shaped a small 'o' of confusion, as she tilted her head to the side. I sighed, imagining the great filing cabinet in her head whizzing past as she went over each memory again, trying to find the clues I was giving her.

Not to be stopped, now that I had my golden opportunity, I barreled right on, "And that's not even bringing up your clear disinterest in us blokes, ditching anyone except your boys for books, and even Harry and Ron had to put up with you talking to them through the spine of some ancient behemoth of a tome on some obscure bit of "light reading". Hermione, no Gryffindor lads even made a pass at you in Hogwarts because we wanted to live long enough to give you a chance to rake us over the proverbial coals. You were surrounded by a Great Wall of Chivalry, and a whole invading horde might have left a bit of a stain as they were trampled, if they were really lucky." I chuckled a bit and looked from the hand I had been holding since I'd asked her out.

"You are one of the most intelligent, attractive, confident, and frightening witches I have ever met. I've had the hots for you since you started your fourth year—aye, before the Yule ball—and haven't lost one ounce of my affection for you. I would be so very honored if you would give me the smallest chance, and join me, as my date, to the Quidditch Yule Celebration. I'll even make sure no one talks to you about Quidditch, or the War. Only whatever you want to hear about." I was about to stop on one knee and beg with several 'please's, but wondered if that would send a different image when she granted me a smile.

"When will you be picking me up, then?"

The snitch in my chest froze, disbelief flooding my body. "Was that a 'yes'? You'll go with me?" She nodded and I made some sort of whooping noise of joy, clutching her quickly to my chest and spinning her around. "YES!"

Her laughter washed into my ears and I felt my cheeks heat up faster than mum's cook-stove, and I quickly settled my bird—cor, it feels so powerful to say that; MY bird—back on her feet. "Um, so, the ball is on the twenty-second, and I'll pick you up just before seven at night, so we can apparate there just as it begins. Sound good to you?"

She smiled at me again, but this time it was a softer, warmer mile, which twisted my insides a little bit, mucking with my mind. "It sounds wonderful, Oliver." And then her face grew very serious, and I felt my recently warm insides turn to hard lead which dropped all the way to the bottom of my gut, settling there uncomfortably. "But, today is only the twelfth. That seems like an awful long time to go without seeing you. Besides we have so much to catch up on. Would you like to meet me for a small lunch on the fifteenth?"

I was nodding so hard I was seeing little tiny bludgers bouncing around like they had been enchanted to play that Muggle sport "Ball Dodgery". "Where would you like to meet, then?"

She was smiling again, and snitches were tickling the walls of my stomach, all lead feelings gone. "Why don't we go visit Rosmerta in Hogsmeade, for old times' sake? How about one in the afternoon?"

My grin could have blocked any Quaffle from entering all three hoops at once it was so wide. "Wonderful. Perfect. Meet you there for lunch then? I can't wait!"

She nodded and pulled me close for a blissful hugs that smelled a bit of ink and sunlight, then she walked over to the Ministry apparition point, waving at me before she disapparated.

Today was a glorious day.

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E/N: Please review!


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